CSU wants failed asylum-seekers deported faster

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Asylum applications should be processed in six weeks, not the current eight months – and failed applicants deported quicker, according to a draft resolution from the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday.

The CSU's regional faction in Bavaria's Wildbad Kreuth recommended copying the Swiss model, which had tightened asylum rules and thereby fast-tracked the procedure, the SZ reported.

Faster asylum processes would not only “foster the acceptance of asylum decisions”, but also lead to “markedly better cooperation from asylum seekers than thus far”. Whoever has not been found to have the right to stay in Germany has to “quickly leave”, the CSU paper said.

Processing an asylum request takes an average of eight months in Germany. The CSU's aim is to resolve cases classified as simple within a maximum of six weeks. Simple cases would include those where an asylum applicant comes from a so-called safe country, as well as those who were already registered in another European Union country before their application in Germany. Almost half of all asylum seekers fall und these two categories, the SZ said.

But the draft resolution has no concrete proposal as to how exactly a fast-tracked procedure would look like, only stating that the asylum procedure should be accelerated via “targeted” execution within a “model project”, the SZ said.

The CSU regional group believes replicating Swiss rules to Germany could mean that application submission and processing at the Federal Migration and Refugees Office (BMF) could be cut to seven days.

An applicant would have a week to get injunctive relief, should the BMF deny the asylum application, bringing the matter to the courts, who should decide within six weeks, “ideally after a month”, whether the asylum seeker has the right to stay or not.

Meanwhile, Bavaria's interior minister Joachm Hermann has also vowed to pursue deportation for those whose applications to stay in Germany have been denied.

However, the paper comes at a tense time for migration issues in Germany, as the ranks of the xenophobic, anti-Muslim Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West swelled to to 17,500 before Christmas, from 200 in October. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly condemend the leaders of the movement in a New Year's address, saying they have have "prejudice, coldness, even hatred in their hearts". Last month, the CSU had to backpedal after suggesting immigrants be obliged to speak German at home invited widespread mockery.